FEBRUARY, 1846. EMBELLISHMENTS. SWEETMEAT.-ENGRAVED BY E. HACKER, FROM A PAINTING BY J. F. HERRING, SEN. A SAFE SHOT.-ENGRAVED BY J. WESTLEY, FROM A PAINTING BY G. ARMFIELD. THE HART OF BENMORE. THE EAGLE'S NEST. CONTENTS. DIARY FOR FEBRUARY. OUR PLEASURE NAVY.-BY CRAVEN. ENCOUNTER WITH A BEAR.-BY L. LLOYD, ESQ. SWEETMEAT-THE PROPERTY OF ARTHUR W. HILL, ESQ. A SAFE SHOT. HIGHLAND SPORTS-BY CHARLES M. WESTMACOTT THE STAG IN NORTHAMPTONSHIRE; OR, A DAY WITH THE NOTITIA VENATICA.-BY R. T. VYNER, ESQ. 111 117 120 126 131 HINTS TO FRESH LA CHASSE ETRANGER.-BY HARRY HIEOVER. RECOLLECTIONS OF OTTER HUNTING.-BY BERRY'S-FRERE FLOREAT ETONA.-BY AN OLD ETONIAN. LEATHERLUNGS THE "LEG." CHAP. XI.-BY THE EDITOR. PUBLIC AMUSEMENTS OF THE METROPOLIS GOWN AND TOWN ROW, Oxford. BY GELERT NARDS RICHMOND -WALSALL-MONMOUTH -CANTER- ROYAL CALEDONIAN HUNT AND KELSO-FARNINGHAM- 511a55 5 27 5 49 6 10 6 33 6 55 7 18 s 4 52 8 2 r 7 38 1Fourth Sun. after Epiphany.r 7 41 s 4 5610 4 r 7 3011 s 4 59 12 8 8 47 9 27 110 810 49 4 4711 29 5 25 0 6 0 38 5 58 1 3 1 25 214 6 26 1 45 2 5 24 F 8 Septuagesima Sunday. 9M BATH STEEPLE CHASE. [CHASER 7 27 13 10 T PICKERING C. MT. HAYES ST.S 5 11 W HEREFORD S. CHS. (Aristocratic). r 7 12 T HEREFORD ST. CHASES (open). s 5 13 F Maidstone F. MORPETH C. MT. r 7 14 S St. Valentine. 15 Sexagesima Sunday. [ST. CH.r 7 16 M Tweed Fishg. begins. BALLYMORES 5 17 T Rugby Fair. LYTHAM C. MT. r 7 18 W LEAMINGTON STEEPLE CHASES. S 5 19 T ALTCAR COURSING MEETING. 20 F Northampton Fair. 21 S Botley Fair. 22 Quinquagesima Sunday. 616 rises 2017 7 54 2 54 3 9 3 26 3 40 23 M DUNDALK STEEPLE CHASES r 7 127 4 26 10 27 11 11 5 1011 52 STEEPLE CHASES IN FEBRUARY. Sedgefield Hunt Club 3 Hayes........ 10 Worcester............ 3 & 4 Hereford............. 11 & 12 Bath............................ 9 Lucan 11 & 12 16 Leamington North of England ......... .... 18 23 & 24 26 26 10 Ballymore.... COURSING MEETINGS IN FEBRUARY. Middleton, Hornby Park (a second), Workington, Cockermouth, Whitehaven, Andoversford, Mold, Morpeth, Newcastle, and Border Meetings for this month not yet fixed. OUR PLEASURE NAVY. BY CRAVEN. "A party in a parlour, Crammed just as they on earth were crammed; PETER BELL. Give a dog a bad name, and the sooner you hang him the better for his happiness: on the contrary, establish his favourable prestige, and your maiden aunt shall nurse him in her lap through the last stages of hydrophobia. Thus is it with morals and with mannerswith everything, in short, on the face of the earth, from philosophy to the parts of speech. This knowledge emboldens me to prefix the foregoing stanza to my nautical essay. I found it pat to the purpose; but in these scrupulous times I should never have had courage to avail myself of it, but for the imprimatur. I cannot resist a text so d-propos: for the rest let its godfather answer. "The motto's William Wordsworth's-every line; And now for its application. "What on earth," cries the reader, "has a tea party in unpleasant circumstances to do with the gentlemen sailors of England?" We'll explain. This case of teaand-turn-out is put as emblematic of " the slows" generally: the poetical proposition is here adopted for the sake of its practical analogy; thus, "sipping tea" is the cause, and the last word of the stanza the consequence. Wherefore, live as befits men; eschew effeminacy; charter a clipper of a hundred and fifty tons, or be Yachting has fallen upon propitious days. "Now the Queen is all for the sea service;" and the young Apollos of May-Fair may be met roughing it at Cowes in Tuscan hats, with scarlet shawls around their manly waists. The latter portion of this sentence perhaps ought to have been dealt with in a different vein. It's more than a laughing matter in the nineteenth century to see a young British gentleman at noon-day dressed as he if were going on for Black-eyed Susan in breeches at Sadler's Wells. Yet who that remembers recent regattas in the Isle of Wight will call this a fancy sketch? Puppyism, in all its phases, has ceased to be popular; one can indeed scarce light upon a fop to furnish the exception. Dandyism is no longer the fashion; and when you meet by any accident with a coxcomb, you may be certain he is a person of weak intellect. A plague on this vice of digression! Yachting, I said, has fallen upon propitious times; and I was about to introduce my instances when the visions of certain mariners of motley garb led me wide of my theme. Now to resume. We are indebted to Mr. James Knight, the excellent secretary of the Royal Southern Yacht Club, for the subjoined statistics of our pleasure navy-one of the greatest sporting facts that ever appertained to any nation. That gentleman sets out with the assertion, that— 'By no other instances of magnificence in their expenditure, and taste in their sports, are foreigners of intelligence so much struck as in the profuse expense and patriotic feeling displayed by the members of the yacht clubs, the fit-out and discipline of many of these vessels approaching to those ranking in their country's service. The expenditure of the yacht clubs counts by hundreds of thousands of pounds in building, fitting, wages, and victualling. Ship-building, too, has greatly improved by the patronage of the clubs; and they employ upwards of four thousand of the smartest seamen to be found in the world." He then proceeds to deal individually with those societies, giving a return of the strength of each : "THE LEADING YACHT CLUBS OF GREAT BRITAIN AND IRELAND. Distinction of Clubs. Royal Yacht Squadron.. No. of Principally Guns. Brass Pounders. 400 from 2 to 9 No. of No. of No. of Royal Thames Yacht Club..... Royal Western Yacht Club.... Royal Southern Yacht Club... Royal Victoria Yacht Club... . . Royal Harwich Yacht Club... Royal Cork Yacht Club.. Royal Mersey Yacht Club...... Royal Eastern Yacht Club.... Deduct about 1-6th for the same yachts belonging to the different Clubs, you will have a grand total of.... "The seamen are exclusive of masters, cooks, and stewards, which would give at least 800, in addition to the foregoing numbers. "The wages alone for the masters and seamen exceed £120,000 per annum; and the intrinsic value of the yachts, with their armament complete, is more than three quarters of a million of money. 66 All yachts (beside their broadside guns) are provided with small arms of every description; and the crews, in most cases, are instructed in the use of them. "The amount of outlay with regard to provisions, clothing, and other expenses, can scarcely be guessed at, as the greatest luxuries are found on board, regardless of cost. At the present time there are upwards of fifty yachts of large tonnage in frame, at the several building-yards of White, Ratsey, and Hanson, of Cowes; Rubie and Blaker, of Southampton; Wanhill and Penny, of Poole; Inman, of Lymington; Moore, of Plymouth; besides the yards at London, Gravesend, Clyde, Kingstown, Cork, and other private yards in the kingdom of Great Britain; so that, in the spring of 1846, six hundred sail of yachts may be calculated to be in commission." Here is a grand summary, indeed-the coup-d'œil of a force on paper-which on its proper element would form one of the greatest and most national spectacles ever placed before the citizens of a state. The design to achieve this by means of an aquatic review is not a new idea; but it has recently been put forward by Mr. Knight in a more attractive form than its earlier promoters were in a position to present it. Our sovereign has a taste for sailing: the Queen passes much of the aquatic season either at her marine villa, surrounded by the head-quarters of the chief yacht-clubs, or actually afloat. In the course of the approaching autumn, it is suggested that a grand review of the pleasure marine of our country should be got up for the especial honour and recreation of her Majesty, as at once the most gorgeous and appropriate token of the homage of her subjects. As a preliminary step, the secretary of the Royal Southern Yacht Club says "I would advise that a meeting, on a grand scale, should be held in London, of all the members of royal yacht clubs in the kingdom, at which the oldest commodore, the Right Hon. the Earl of Yarborough, should be requested to preside, to consider the most advisable mode of getting up a mag nificent review of all the yacht clubs in the kingdom, to take place before her Majesty in the yachting months of 1846. "I would respectfully tender my opinion, in deference to the judgment of such a meeting, that it would be advisable for every royal yacht club to rendezvous (say in the month of August), at the desire of their commodores, at Cowes, or the immediate vicinity, and go through the necessary preliminary manœuvres in divisions or squadrons, in order to acquire the practice which would make the evolutions of the combined fleet, when reviewed by her Majesty, deserving of her approbation. I will not presume to suggest any further details, but express my hope that the idea may not be thought unworthy of realization by the noblemen and gentlemen of the yacht clubs of Great Britain. Such a day will not only be unprecedented, but the display would be honourable to the national character." This is all admirable; and we may hope at no distant day for some such splendid expression of national homage to the monarch-some such exclusive exhibition of a nation's power developed in the materials of its pleasures. We are all fond of giving our opinion-the only alms indeed that go a-begging-and if I might offer my notions on the subject, it would be that, with or without the proposed review, all our yacht clubs should respectfully volunteer their services to escort their Queen on the occasion of her next visit to a foreign power. Conceive the sovereign of England entering a continental harbour, accompanied by a fleet of five hundred pleasure galleys, commanded by the chivalry, and manned by the choicest crews of the ocean autocrat. Compared with such a sight, Cleopatra's voyage on the Cydnus would rank with the maritime pageants of Sadler's Wells. Some comments on Mr. Knight's proposed rendezvous recently appeared in one of the journals, according to which a review of the kind would have to contend with a fatal difficulty in the want of a general code of signals common to all yacht clubs. This subject was discussed at the last meeting of the Royal Victoria Club at Ryde, and most probably will not be now lost sight of till something is done |